He turned, vaulted the fence, and bending low he crept cautiously over to the barn. At the window, he rose slowly upright and peered inside.

The horror of what he saw there remained focussed on his mind ever afterwards; and always when he turned to that picture in the alb.u.m of his memory, his gorge rose and a murderl.u.s.t that could hardly be stifled filled his entire being.

He darted to the door of the barn. It was unfastened. He flung it open and rushed inside, throwing himself with mad fury on Brenchfield, who had his coat off and his sleeves rolled up. He had a long whip in his hand, poised high in the air, and was about to continue his devilish cruelty.

The Mayor swung round and, before Phil got to him, the downward stroke of the whip caught the latter across the head and shoulders. He staggered for the fraction of a second, then closed with his adversary, catching the right arm that held the whip and, turning it smartly over his shoulder in a trick Jim Langford had taught him, had Brenchfield groaning with the pain of the strain on his elbow. He relaxed his fingers and the whip dropped to the strawed floor.

Phil released his hold, whirled round and shot his right fist full in the face of his opponent. His left hand followed, sending Brenchfield backward. Recovering quickly, the Mayor came back at Phil, cursing roundly. But strong and heavy as he was, he was no match now for the st.u.r.dy, young blacksmith before him. And it was not very many minutes before he knew it.

They fought around the stable like wild cats. Time and again Brenchfield got in on Phil, but for every time he did Phil got in on him half a dozen. The heavier man's breath began to give out. His face was cut and bleeding and his vision was becoming more and more faulty as time went on.

"Skook.u.m!" he cried furiously. "What the h.e.l.l's the matter with you?

Brain this fool with the lantern, can't you?"

But his henchman, Skook.u.m, had already perceived how the fight was going and his discretion proved much greater than his valour. He dropped the lantern and darted out at the door. As good luck would have it, the lantern fell right-end up and, after wobbling precariously on its rim, sat upright in the corner, blinked, then continued to shed a fitful light over the scene.

Phil, with anger unabated, darted in on Brenchfield, smashing at him right and left. The latter tottered. Phil sprang in and clutched at his throat. Both went forcibly to the ground, with Brenchfield undermost. Phil gripped and squeezed and shook with almost ferocious brutality, until the Mayor's struggles became less and less violent, and finally ceased. And after that, Phil's grip did not relax, for that murderl.u.s.t, which he had read of and heard of but had never before understood, was on him.

Had it not been for a quiet, pleading voice and a little hand that slipped over his and along his fingers, pushing its way between his and the soft throat of his adversary, the sunlight would have gone out of his life for all time.

"Please, Phil,--please!" she cried. "Don't! Phil--you would not kill him! You must not,--for my sake, for my sake! He isn't worth it. Phil, Phil,--let him go!"

And the murderl.u.s.t--as it had done so often before at the gentle but all powerful pleading of G.o.d's women--shrank back, dwindled down, then faded into its native oblivion.

Phil's fingers relaxed and he rose slowly, working his hands convulsively, then pushing his wet hair back from his forehead, as he looked first down at the gasping figure of his hated adversary and then in open-eyed amazement at Eileen.

"Thanks!" he said, very quietly.

"Why did you do that?" she said. "What has he done?"

For answer, Phil caught her by the arm and turned her about-face.

A bundle of rags was trussed against the post of one of the stalls.

Phil lifted the lantern from the ground and held it up.

"Oh!--oh, dear G.o.d!" she wailed piteously, running forward with hands outstretched. "Quick, Phil!--loose the ropes. The hound!--oh, the miserable, foul hound!" she continued.

Phil drew a pocket knife and slashed the ropes that held poor, little, half-unconscious Smiler.

They set the boy gently in a corner; and slowly, in response to crooning words and loving hands that stroked his dirty, wet brow, he came to; and what a great smile he had for Eileen as she laid her tear-stained cheek against the cold, twisted face.

Phil turned as Brenchfield was slowly rising on his arm. He went over and picked up the whip.

"What are you going to do?" anxiously cried Eileen.

"Just three!" said Phil, "for the three he gave that poor, helpless little devil. Say 'No' and I won't."

It was a challenge.

For answer, Eileen hid her face among Smiler's rags. And three times, with all the force of a young blacksmith's arm behind it, that whip rose and fell across the shoulders of Vernock's Mayor, ere it was broken with a snap and tossed by Phil among the straw.

A little later and Smiler was on his feet, little the worse.

Eileen led him outside.

Phil and Brenchfield were then alone.

"d.a.m.n you, for an interloping jail-breaker! I'll fix you for this before you're much older," growled the Mayor.

"d.a.m.n all you like," answered Phil, "but one word of any kind from you of what has happened here to-night and you are the man who will be trying to break jail. Keep your mouth shut, and we are square on what has happened. Say as much as a word and--well,--it's up to you."

"Oh, you go to h.e.l.l!" exclaimed Brenchfield.

CHAPTER XVII

Wayward Langford's Grand Highland Fling

Jim Langford did not make an appearance until breakfast time that morning, and then there was dirt on his clothes, fire in his eyes and venom on his tongue.

"What do you know?" asked Phil as soon as they were alone.

"Know? What did I tell you, man? Darn them for the four-flushing hypocrites that they are. An hour ago Palmer came trotting back quite calmly with his crew.

"'The bunch got away on us, across the Line,' he whimpered.

"A put-up game from start to finish! Oh, don't let me talk about it, Phil. It makes me positively crazy. For ten cents I'd go and shoot up the town."

Phil tried to get Jim to sit down and eat, but it was useless, for Jim kept walking Mrs. Clunie's dining-room like something in a cage.

Knowing the danger of the mood, Phil kept a wise silence and, much as he disliked it, he had to leave his angry chum and get along to his work.

At the smithy, things were little better. Sol Hanson had, in a roundabout way, gathered that Smiler had been abused, and, in some inexplicable manner, had arrived at the truth, that Brenchfield was responsible for it. Sol was vowing vengeance in no uncertain tones.

"What you know about it, Phil?"

"Guess he's just been in a sc.r.a.p with some other kids," answered Phil in an off-hand way.

"Sc.r.a.p nothing! You just about as dumb as Smiler. All the same, some day I kill that big blow-hard Brenchfield. Maybe he Mayor; maybe he got all kinds of money. Dirty son-of-a-gun, that's all! I know him,--see! Next time he tie Sol Hanson up, by gar!--I finish him. He what you call,--all cackle, no egg."

Phil laughed.

"All right!--you laugh away. Some day I get drunk--good and drunk--just for fun to break his big fat neck. You watch me,--see!"

"Forget it, Sol! You can't afford to do that kind of thing now. You're a married man, you know."